Hamilton & Hulkenberg Brazil 2012 Incident [split]

Later in the frame, I think Hamilton had time to move out a bit. By then, the hard braking was completed, and he could have seen how unstable Hulkenberg was getting. This is not the first time this season. Even in Valencia, against Maldonado, he need not have fought hard with Maldonado keeping it so tight, even though that was also clearly Maldonado's mistake. He can easily argue in both cases, it was not his mistake, and he would win the cases hands down. But he lost 37 points.

So you are practically suggesting that drivers should just move away when another young and inexperience driver is making an overtaking move and they should only defend their position if the overtaking driver is an experienced one?

I rather have it so that penalty should be given to drivers who made an idiotic mistake and collide with another who clearly have left enough space. That way they will learn to race while respecting each others' space just like what Schumacher and Kimi did without making any mistake nor contact.

, he just lost control and punishing it with a drive-through was way too harsh, especially since Hülkenberg was already punished by that ridiculous pace car, Hamilton normally wouldn't have been running even remotely near Hülkenberg without that pacecar

Irrelevant, penalties don't take into account circumstances such as this, as the pace car wasn't a penalty for Hulkenberg. That's just a co-incidence, there are winners and losers every time there is a safety car.

(he was running +-45 sec. behind Button & Hülkenberg). It's obvious that they just penalised Nico to get Alonso on the podium so that the championship fight would be more exciting.

That's a whole different argument about Bernie Ecclestone and corruption in Formula 1. Maybe you should make your own thread for that one, this one is about the Hulkenberg - Hamilton incident, and whether it merited a penalty, which it did.

Only in recent years, it didn't used to be like that. But I guess you weren't watching F1 in the '80s or '90s. I think it's wrong to always look for a guilty person, accidents can happen, you don't crash on purpose in to someone (at least most don't, Prost, Senna & Schumacher have done it though), I think it's sad that someone has to be punished when it is clearly unintentional, imho only the worst accidents / mistakes or most blatant ones should be punished. And I'm talking in general now, not just about this incident.

Virtually all incidents are unintentional, in this day an age an intentional incident would result in much more than just a drive-through, believe me. I'm sorry but in modern F1 you can't try an overtaking move in ambitious circumstances (on the wet line with a backmarker in the mix), lose control of your car totally by yourself, DNF the race leader, and continue having lost only a couple of seconds as if nothing had happened. And I am very glad about this.

Hamilton being the leader or not should have nothing to do with it. They could've been racing over 21st and it makes no difference.

Also, I don't agree with the idea of the end result being brought into deciding a penalty. Either it's a penalty or it's not. This is sport not some drive to the shops and running someone over, the stewards shouldn't be there to bring some sort of balance of "fairness" to the end result, but rather regard a drivers actions as within or outside the rules and apply penalties accordingly. If Hulkenberg making a mistake in tricky conditions which results in unintentional contact is decreed by the stewards to be wrong then give the penalty.

It shouldn't matter if the contact then ended up in one or the other breaking their suspensions. If he (Nico) was outside the rules, but that contact meant that Hamilton rolled and his car unearthed hidden treasure worth 10 trillion dollars that allowed Lewis to become the first man to walk on Mars, then Hulk should still get a penalty.

If you do something malicious, something wildly reckless, or ram into the back of someone for no good reason, then I'm happy for penalties there. But the idea of people racing side by side and being penalised for making mistakes under those conditions is ridiculous.

Hulkenberg made a very small error on a slippery track, everyone else made similiar errors including lewis.. it just happened that this one caused an impact. His comments afterwards were ridiculous though, lewis could not have moved away at all, the back of the FI slid into him with no warning.

Hulkenberg made a very small error on a slippery track, everyone else made similiar errors including lewis.. it just happened that this one caused an impact. His comments afterwards were ridiculous though, lewis could not have moved away at all, the back of the FI slid into him with no warning.

I would be mad if that had happened to me leading a race like that in a car like that. Not only have you been tucked up 'for the show' by the stupid safety car and lost a huge lead after such a gutsy decision to stay out and sublime driving skills to keep upto pace but then you get a penalty for trying to overtake someone. It was a decent attempt precisely where he took the lead and there was another car in the way he just lost the back end right on the ragged edge. Yes it took Hamilton out but that's racing, I really wanted Lewis to win, why didn't Vettel get a penalty for reversing into Senna and Perez? Why didn't Vettel get a penalty for cutting off Senna's natural line into the corner. How many other trip-up's went unnoticed in the race without penalty? Didn't Webber get tapped?

Irrelevant, penalties don't take into account circumstances such as this, as the pace car wasn't a penalty for Hulkenberg. That's just a co-incidence, there are winners and losers every time there is a safety car.

That's a whole different argument about Bernie Ecclestone and corruption in Formula 1. Maybe you should make your own thread for that one, this one is about the Hulkenberg - Hamilton incident, and whether it merited a penalty, which it did.

What's Irrelevant? of course penalties take things like this into account what do you think the driver steward is for? The discretion needed to judge the drivers decisions,judgement and intentions. It is very significant to this thread mentioning in passing that the safety car was unnecessary as it affected the incident being discussed in terms of car positions and Hulkenberg's frame of mind. Also saying about a co-incidence is also stupid because deciding whether or not to have a safety car is heavily influenced by what is going on in the race so don't pretend that isn't the case either.

I don't understand why some people would still call the incident with Lewis as racing incident when Lewis has clearly left enough room for Hulkenberg and Hulkenberg made a mistake on his own by losing the control of the rear of his car.

Yes agreed. I watched that incdent over and over again and Hamilton was very careful to leave enough room.

There was nothing wrong both with Hulk's manouvre and the space Hamilton left.

It is a penalty because Hulkenberg put another car out of the race and he himself continued driving. The fact that it was a simple honest mistake is irrelevant. I'm sorry but the end result DOES matter here.

You can't punt another car out of the race with a 100% your mistake where you lost control of the car and keep racing and just go "oops".

It's an honest mistake and not a dangerous move so the driver isn't additionally penalized and wouldn't be if he had also retired but you can't just get away with it. It's pretty simple.

I believe hamilton got a puncture from a big pile of debris earlier in the year, yet there was no SC. SC's are generally reserved for cars in dangerous positions, debris is removed under yellow flags.

Not when you have a 50m run off area to cover to get to the track/debris. Ask yourself this - would YOU be willing to go out and remove debris under a local yellow when todays F1 drivers simply believe that 'obeying the yellow flag' just means not going faster than they did on previous laps?

Yes agreed. I watched that incdent over and over again and Hamilton was very careful to leave enough room.

He left sooooo much more room than Kimi did when he was racing Schumacher at the same corner. I honestly don't think there was anything more he could have reasonably done, without the benefit of hindsight.

Later in the frame, I think Hamilton had time to move out a bit. By then, the hard braking was completed, and he could have seen how unstable Hulkenberg was getting. This is not the first time this season. Even in Valencia, against Maldonado, he need not have fought hard with Maldonado keeping it so tight, even though that was also clearly Maldonado's mistake. He can easily argue in both cases, it was not his mistake, and he would win the cases hands down. But he lost 37 points.

That's ridiculous. Hulkenberg lost the car in a split second and the slide into Hamilton happened very quickly. You seem to be saying that Hamilton has to drive into that corner at racing speed in difficult track conditions, be sure he's cleared the Caterham and keep the car on the road and leave enough space for Hulkenberg and all the time keep watching in his left hand mirror, from which you can see precious little in dry conditions let alone when there is lots of spray around, the scene unfold as Hulkenberg loses it so that he can then move further away from Hulkenberg if he needs to. It was Hulkenberg's responsibility to avoid hitting Hamilton as it was Maldonado's.

What's Irrelevant? of course penalties take things like this into account what do you think the driver steward is for? The discretion needed to judge the drivers decisions,judgement and intentions. It is very significant to this thread mentioning in passing that the safety car was unnecessary as it affected the incident being discussed in terms of car positions and Hulkenberg's frame of mind. Also saying about a co-incidence is also stupid because deciding whether or not to have a safety car is heavily influenced by what is going on in the race so don't pretend that isn't the case either.

No, penalties don't take into account how a driver's race is going. If someone goes from P1 to P24 simply due to a safety car, and has an incident on his recovery drive, it will still be penalised just the same.

I think we also need to look at this issue from the teams point of view.

In some way this penalty seemed a bit harsh. But then it cost McLaren probably 2nd place in the WCC, and thus a few million dollars. Compared to that, Hulkenberg got away cheap.

And I don't think it's a consideration to take as a side note. A few laps before the incident I noticed that if Hulkenberg wins that race (at that time no Sauber (only Koba left) was in the points), FI would be on the same points as Sauber, but be ahead of Sauber because of Hulkenberg winning the last race and thus FI getting some more money next year.

Oh the irony, because Hulkenbergs DT ensured that his new team has more cash available for car development than his old.

There was nothing wrong both with Hulk's manouvre and the space Hamilton left.

It is a penalty because Hulkenberg put another car out of the race and he himself continued driving. The fact that it was a simple honest mistake is irrelevant. I'm sorry but the end result DOES matter here.

You can't punt another car out of the race with a 100% your mistake where you lost control of the car and keep racing and just go "oops".

It's an honest mistake and not a dangerous move so the driver isn't additionally penalized and wouldn't be if he had also retired but you can't just get away with it. It's pretty simple.

Would you, or anyone else caliming that punting another car should result in a penalty please explain why Perez got punted by Maldonado in similar circumstances at Silverstone, but Maldonado only got a repremand ?

Watch the race highlights on f1.com, Maldo lunges up the inside looses the rear, and punts Perez off. No penatly ?

Would you, or anyone else caliming that punting another car should result in a penalty please explain why Perez got punted by Maldonado in similar circumstances at Silverstone, but Maldonado only got a repremand ?

Watch the race highlights on f1.com, Maldo lunges up the inside looses the rear, and punts Perez off. No penatly ?

That's ridiculous. Hulkenberg lost the car in a split second and the slide into Hamilton happened very quickly. You seem to be saying that Hamilton has to drive into that corner at racing speed in difficult track conditions, be sure he's cleared the Caterham and keep the car on the road and leave enough space for Hulkenberg and all the time keep watching in his left hand mirror, from which you can see precious little in dry conditions let alone when there is lots of spray around, the scene unfold as Hulkenberg loses it so that he can then move further away from Hulkenberg if he needs to. It was Hulkenberg's responsibility to avoid hitting Hamilton as it was Maldonado's.

Would you, or anyone else caliming that punting another car should result in a penalty please explain why Perez got punted by Maldonado in similar circumstances at Silverstone, but Maldonado only got a repremand ?

Watch the race highlights on f1.com, Maldo lunges up the inside looses the rear, and punts Perez off. No penatly ?Hulk was robbed, both by the show car and the drive through.

You can't be robbed if you make a mistake and take out the leader of the race.

It might be a harsh penalty, it might be an incident that wouldn't always be penalised...but the guy who was robbed is the guy who's race he ended, not the other way round.

Hulkenberg definitely deserved drive-through for this collision. There was nothing Lewis could have done. He gave lots of room to Hulk but he lost his rear and hit Lewis's front left tyre heavily. Luckily he was able to continue without any damage but poor Lewis had to retire as always

Nico is totally at fault and penalty is deserved, he lost the car and caused Hamilton's DNF. However, I bet that guys at Force India feel bitter about the penalty as Kimi wasn't penalized when he lost the car and caused Sutil's DNF in Monaco few years back.

Nico is totally at fault and penalty is deserved, he lost the car and caused Hamilton's DNF. However, I bet that guys at Force India feel bitter about the penalty as Kimi wasn't penalized when he lost the car and caused Sutil's DNF in Monaco few years back.

few years back you could have 12 thousand reprimands in a season and face no penalty, in Brazil Maldonado took a 10 grid drop for his 3 reprimands.

few years back you could have 12 thousand reprimands in a season and face no penalty, in Brazil Maldonado took a 10 grid drop for his 3 reprimands.

things change in time

It's because of the latitude that drivers where given in the past that we are in the situation we are now in - the current generation of drivers grew up watching F1 drivers getting away with stock-car tactics and took it as the normal way of driving. As a result we get more contact accidents these days and the FIA has decided to try to shut the gate after the horse has bolted. The drivers may not like it but the solution is in their own hands.